


A Different Kind of Family

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M, Families of Choice, Kid Fic, Not Canon Compliant, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 04:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18514096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: Inspired by Lee saying:"What am I supposed to do if something happens to you?  Raise this baby with Barbara?"





	A Different Kind of Family

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a rush so that I can post it just under the wire before tonight's episode josses me for Barbara's and the baby's fates. 
> 
> *crosses fingers for Barbara*
> 
> I intend to revisit this ficlet soon and ultimately end up with Lee/Barbara.

“You’re not her mother,” Barbara says.

 

The Lee who walked into the GCPD on her first day of work wants to cry.  No shit, that Lee thinks.  I’m nobody’s mother.  The Lee from the Narrows wants to sharpen a knife and slash it across Barbara’s pretty, pink mouth, and this new Lee—the one who beat Nyssa al Ghul to death with an Absolut bottle, the one who piled all the dead bodies of the Sirens in the storeroom to deal with later, the one who’s offering to be part of Barbara’s life and meaning it—rolls her eyes and says, “Whatever,” and goes back to stroking the baby’s tiny, perfect cheek.  “You’re going with Barbara Junior?  Really?”

 

“I’m sorry. Did you miss the narcissism part of my clinical diagnosis when I was admitted to Arkham?” Barbara says. 

 

But Lee hears what Barbara doesn’t say loud and clear.  This baby is a second chance for her, an opportunity for the name Barbara Kean to mean something new.  Lee thinks she’s also a possibility for everyone else to be better than they have been, too.

 

“We’re going to have to call her something else.  You know that.”

 

“Yeah,” Barbara says.  “I know.  Not Babs.”

 

They end up calling her Bee.

 

Jim shows up late as usual.  He’s covered in bruises and limping, but the city is safe, and he can’t stop smiling at Bee squirming in his arms and making tiny noises.

 

They’re a parody of one big happy family, the maniac and the gang leader and the self-righteous captain of the GCPD, murderers all of them and all of them head over heels already for this baby girl.

 

@@@

 

“Is she going to cry forever?  What am I doing wrong?” Barbara looks frantic.  Her hair is standing on end and not in that cruel chic way she’s mastered.  She has bags under her eyes, and Lee can tell she’s on the verge of tears, too.

 

Lee feels a little frazzled herself, and she’s only been listening to Bee cry for ten minutes.  “She’s colicky,” Lee says.

 

“What the fuck does that mean?”

 

“It means she’s crying, and we don’t know why.”

 

“Oh, great,” Barbara says.  “That’s very helpful.  Thank you.”  Then she sits down on an examination table and starts crying in tandem with her daughter, her tears falling onto Bee’s knitted cap.  “I don’t know why I thought I could do this. I can’t do this.  I’m a terrible person and a terrible mom.”

 

Lee sits down beside her.  “You are 100 percent a terrible person, but you’re not a terrible mom.  I’ve got a few tricks we can try, okay?  Let’s see if we can get her calmed down.”

 

Barbara nods, wipes her eyes, and hands off the baby to Lee.  Forty minutes later, Bee is finally silent and sleeping, and Barbara looks ready to collapse. 

 

“You shouldn’t have to handle this alone,” Lee says, tucking Barbara into a hospital bed for a nap, and that’s how Barbara and Bee end up moving into Jim’s spare bedroom.

 

@@@

 

Privately, Lee thinks reunification will never happen. She keeps up a good front for Jim, but the stream of villains in Gotham seems endless. Gotham will never be entirely safe, and as long as the total absence of evil masterminds is the criterion for joining the rest of the world, Lee supposes they’re on their own for good.

 

So Bee grows up in a war zone. She grows up in a bar that caters to criminals with Ed and Penguin calling themselves her uncles, and Lee hates it—all of it—but she has to admit that Barbara’s doing just about the best job anyone could do under the circumstances.  Everything Barbara does now is about making Gotham a safer place for Bee, and every morning when Barbara heads out to Sirens with Bee strapped to her chest, Lee worries, but not about Barbara fucking up.

 

Lee’s too busy worrying about Jim.  He seems determined to make her a widow again, and Lee knew he would always be standing on the edge of a cliff when she married him, but she’d forgotten how exhausting watching him try to kill himself can be.  She loves Jim—with her whole heart and more than she’s ever loved anyone in her life—but she wishes he’d let somebody else take a turn getting kidnapped and beaten black and blue once in awhile.

 

Like tonight.  Jim’s missing, Harvey’s frantic, and Bee’s taking her first steps across the floor of the GCPD.  Barbara lets her little chubby hands go, and she toddles over to Lee, lunging for Lee’s hands and laughing when Lee catches her.  Lee can’t think of a better distraction. 

 

“Mama,” Bee says when Lee catches her for the tenth time.  Lee stops breathing.  She looks up at Barbara, ready for a nuclear meltdown, but Barbara just shrugs.

 

“You’re clocking in just as much ass wiping duty as I am,” she says.  “And way more puke duty, thank all that is holy.  Plus, you’ve never really struck me as the auntie type.  You can be her Mama Lee if you want.”  She looks at Lee sidelong through her bangs, like she thinks Lee might say no, like Lee might be stupid enough to reject an offer like that.

 

“Mama Lee’s got you,” she says to Bee and blows a raspberry on her fat little belly.

 

Harvey finds Jim like always and brings him home, limping and looking like hell.  Jim doesn’t even blink when he hears Mama Lee, just starts calling her that along with everyone else, and that’s when Lee realizes that somehow they’ve become a true family—improbable and weird and nothing like the family she used to dream of having when she was younger.  Lee is living with a woman who was committed to an insane asylum and who has tried to murder her multiple times, and she’s co-parenting (or tri-parenting, Lee supposes) her husband’s baby with this woman, and at this point, Lee couldn’t imagine her life any other way.


End file.
